


Tactile

by StarsCrackedOpen (Misthia)



Series: Things Carried, Unseen [12]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alien Culture, Best Friends, Character Study, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Gen, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), Meditation, Pre-Relationship, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25624456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misthia/pseuds/StarsCrackedOpen
Summary: Ahsoka has lots of time to observe her master.Or: In which Ahsoka shares with Anakin a meditation not taught by the Jedi.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker/Ahsoka Tano
Series: Things Carried, Unseen [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1839160
Comments: 6
Kudos: 189





	Tactile

**Author's Note:**

> This one is a little different, and shorter than most. It began as a character study and sort of spun out from there. I actually started it before the last, and a line in it is what gave me an idea for that one. Though, I imagine this one taking place before “Uncontrolled Variables,” which is why it’s referenced as something that hasn’t happened yet.
> 
> Again, ambiguous enough for pre-ship vs. strong platonic here, tagging as I do the others. Personally I felt it being pre-ship as I wrote it.
> 
> It might be a little sloppy — if needed I’ll tighten it up.

* * *

Anakin was a more tactile person than most in the temple, from what Ahsoka had observed, and she had plenty of time to observe her master.

He found peace in working with his hands (a trait that had rubbed off on her), rather than the still meditation Master Kenobi favored. Her master would pat her shoulder in approval, nudge her foot under the table if they were bickering. Later, he would hold her hand when her shoulder dislocated and had to be reset in the field — and she’d squeeze so hard in an effort not to yell that she’d bruise him, though he’d deny it later. He had embraced her after Mortis.

It seemed to Ahsoka that touch was how he processed the world beyond the Force, which to her mind made sense. He was so strong in the Force that she imagined that tactile contact helped ground him in the physical, and that’s why he seemed to seek it out.

If that _was_ why, she understood. Her people did that too, in their own way — walking barefoot to feel the world beneath them. For the Force-sensitive, the effect was multiplied. It was a luxury Ahsoka rarely got to indulge in, living in the temple on urban Coruscant. One rare, quiet night found them on a far-flung planet after a particularly difficult day. She had kicked off her boots to walk the rich, loamy soil. Anakin asked what she was doing, and she explained as best she could.

“Togruta like to feel the land under their feet. It...grounds you.” He raised an eyebrow. She had smiled and said, “You should try it master, it feels good.” Anakin had still looked skeptical, but after a moment of her beaming at him had sighed, pulled off his own boots and stood awkwardly beside her under the bright moons.

His eyes slid over to her. “What now?” She turned her face up to the sky, closed her eyes, and _breathed_.

She breathed the day’s frustration out, the humid air in. Ahsoka curled her toes into the dirt, focusing on the simple feeling of it and the planet beneath her. She felt her place in the Force, and then slowly the planet’s throb in it as well, the steady flow of life, a pulse under her that climbed up to the tips of her montrals.

Life _thrummed_ around her, through her, and she felt the Living Force resonate within her own body like a song. She reached through the bond to her master with the feeling and heard him inhale sharply.

Soon she felt her master’s pulse in the flow, unmistakably Anakin. His presence unfolded from him like the petals of a flower, lush and variegated. It amplified the sensation, joining her pulse, and the planet’s. They all beat together, a deeply physical meditation granted by thousands of years of instinct and their own sensitivity.

There was nothing _still_ about this, though neither was it chaotic. The perfect fractals all life shared bloomed around them in the Force, sparking on her skin. If meditation at the temple was to empty oneself and become a vessel for the Force, this felt more like sinking into its song, becoming another instrument in an orchestra that played endlessly. It was to feel the Force through the life around them, its sync within living things.

Ahsoka had never tried it with anyone else. Adding another Force user, and certainly one as attuned to it as her master, intensified it greatly.

She opened her eyes, enraptured, and saw her master’s face glowing in the moonlight. His eyes were closed, lips parted, and brow smooth. After a minute his eyes opened, half-lidded and luminous, and met hers. In the headiness she reached through the bond and he reached back. Where they met, as if completing a circuit, the Force hummed between them even as the planet’s pulse faded beneath their feet.

Something hung there then, a kind of intimacy that Ahsoka couldn’t name. Their bond again felt different, more dimensional, that feeling another shimmering thread laced into it. Finally Anakin spoke.

“I like togruta meditation better.”

Ahsoka agreed.

_**Fin.** _

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, I hope you like it — please let me know what you think!


End file.
